


Mages for Sport

by cinderadler



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Anal Sex, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Demons, Fantasizing, Fear of Death, Fearlings, First Kiss, Flirting, Flowers, Fluff, Heart-to-Heart, Help, Hurt/Comfort, Library, M/M, Magic, Rogue!Inquisitor, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Teasing, Watching, gentle magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27427468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderadler/pseuds/cinderadler
Summary: Dorian has his eyes on the newest m!Inquisitor. All the while the Inquisitor wonders when he'll catch Dorian looking back.This budding, secret romance could blossom with enough care.But the seed must be planted for the flower to grow...
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Oculara of the Peripheral

There is a rich, comforting aroma of dust in the air. It’s always colder than Dorian expects it to be in the here. Especially with so many people here, you’d think some warmth would encircle the place. ‘Veilfire’s useless’, He reminds himself as he perches on a half-turned chair, looking out across the hollow in the middle of the Skyhold library.

‘Strange’, He thinks to himself, watching the man across the chasm idly toy with a dusty shelf of books like he is looking for nothing in particular. He stands tall though he bends his knees to 'search'. He glances across as Dorian when Dorian looks away. The man across the chasm is grateful to be left alone for but a few minutes, going so far as to enjoy the peace this gazing at Dorian brings him, even in crowds. To be any less than subtle in public would complicate things, the man thinks, feeling the anchor in his hand tingle and course once with a green shimmer. From the other side as he half-watches, Dorian is sure he is, in fact, looking only to look busy. ‘But then I’ve always enjoyed strangeness the most.’ He accepts this thought with a wistful sigh to himself. He repositions himself from his chair and strands to lean back against his cluttered desk, one strewn with open, half-annotated books. To stop his curious expression from being remarked upon, he raises one to skim over. His eyes drift up after a moment’s reading, as he looks over at the man beyond the bannister. He admires him as though he could be any stranger, disregarding the Inquisitor' status for a mere moment, adoring how he very simply exists with the world around himself, searching for and filling absences created by bodies. He lingers long enough to leave an impression in the dust gathering on the tiles, but not enough to leave a footprint.

Dorian considers that he'd be hard to track down if he didn’t want to be found. A smirk rises to his lips as he then thinks about how thrilling the Inquisitor would be to chase. With this tantalising thought in mind, Dorian's keen eyes settle again on his distant shape to discover he's flitted through the small crowd of mages and researchers scuffling over tomes.

The young altus is lost in his thoughts as he softens his focus. Where he was is now an absence.

Dorian feels his smile fade as he notices this. ‘No matter’, He almost shrugs but instead pulls a petal from a flower lying loose on his desk. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder so I hear’. And so, the game begins.

He softly steps around the curling balcony to peruse the shelves the Lord Inquisitor was looking at. He occupies the absence and, in doing so, creates his own. “What _were_ you looking for, little one?” He murmurs, resting his thumb to his lips before reaching out to pick up a tarnished copy of Oculara of the Peripheral before negotiating out from the alcove of books. “So light on your feet...” He mumbles to himself, unannouncing his thoughts from the room. ‘Light reading’, he thinks as he sidles back to his perch by the eastern window. He sits with this book in the window for over an hour, reading notes and spells that he already knows. The afternoon passes him by as he takes a loose slip of paper from his pocket and unfolds it to write something down to himself before casting a glance out to the endless horizon beyond the mountains.

-

Dorian lounges in the crook of the window and does not once consider that when he is not watching, he is being watched. His dark hair catches the dying light with a lustre. It compliments his features. 

“I’d ask you for less of the little.” A soft voice teases, appearing silently from behind a bookshelf. Dorian flinches but doesn’t turn around.

“You could hear me?” He muses, smiling to himself. He turns to face the voice. Opening his body out to him, he drags his left hand behind him across the book he has splayed on his desk. “You were there.” He deduces before the leader can explain, Dorian is clearly enjoying the game of it all. “Where?” He asks with a roguish curiosity. His grey eyes search the Inquisitior's face for some weakness he can capture and wrap around his finger, eager for some yarn to pull to eke this out.

“You couldn’t sense me?” He prods the mage more than he asks, looking for him to give. His teeth are sharp this close. “Or _feel_ me?” He lets himself whisper, idly lifting his right hand up to the book on Dorian’s desk and skirting his fingers over Dorian's. His skin is warm. The rogue Inquisitor wants to stay here and trace the backs of Dorian’s hands, learning each curves and mark. Even after a fleeting touch, he notes scars he'd like to ask him about. Perhaps some other time.

“I thought I could smell metal on the air." He smirks with a soft chuckle. "And here I thought myself roguish.” The mage recovers himself after swallowing a thought.

“It’s a clever trick, isn’t it?” The Inquisitor hums with a widening smile. Dorian lets his hand stay where it is until he moves it, at which point the mage reaches out and wraps his pinky finger around his. He doesn’t acknowledge his movement by looking at it.

“We couldn’t have the Inquisitor _not_ be clever, now, could we?” Dorian’s lips are blushed with a soft brown makeup. Inquisitor Lavellan wonders what it tastes like as he plays with him. “That’s half of the charm.”

“Only half?” He quips, concentrating on his form in this space. He wants desperately to touch Dorian further, to place his hand over his heart and feel him fluster.

“Oh, at least 60 percent.” Dorian utters after a second, biting his lip as he thinks. He turns his left hand up into the rogue's as he speaks, running his thumb across your open palm. After a moment, he lets the Lord go, feeling the prying eyes of distant strangers on them both. “Rather a shame I can’t transfigure myself to be invisible too, isn’t it?” There’s a stifled sadness to his wanting sarcasm, 'it is the same that put the scars there' the Inquisitor thinks. This was something that lets his guard slip, even if for a moment.

“Inquisitor-” He declares, as he watches the other man shift on his feet and gently turn to leave. “before you go—” The mage reaches into a small slip of a pocket in the breast of his sleeveless doublet and pulls a seed from it. In the same movement, he flicks it into the air like he’s flipping a coin and makes a gesture with the fingers of his other hand and the seed bursts into a white flower as it floats to the floor where it was, moments ago, falling. “Clever isn’t it?” He remarks as he bends to catch the milk lotus and offer it to the Inquisitor between two fingers. "Take it. A man's not complete without a flower." Dorian sings, hiding something behind his empty positing of man.

The rogue notices now where he didn’t before, too distracted by the man himself, that Dorian’s desk is surrounded by small seedlings and cut flowers, all presumably ones he has brought to life with magic. Undeniably, whatever this gets Dorian, what the Inquisitor just witnessed was remarkable.

“60 percent clever.” He ribs the mage as he slips away from this sweet enclosure that swelled with the two of them in. As he walks, Lavellan think he hears Dorian laugh, but the sound is lost as he slinks down the winding staircase to the kitchen on the lower floor.

-

‘Alright, Lord Inquisitor; the chase will be a thrill.’ Dorian promises himself as he brushes his fingertips across a small and separated bouquet’s worth of flowers around his open books. He hopes that this was more than just a trick of the light. He wants to breathe life into this daydream that comes to him at night too; and in that same kiss of life, taste him. He’s curious if curious if this rogue tastes of metal, like an old rogue dalliance of his did. But that was an old story for Dorian, he was only interested in the new now.


	2. Throw Me a Sheet, or Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian finds out what life is like on the other side of the table and spends an evening in the company of The Iron Bull, drowning his sorrows.  
> The Inquisitor has a surprise planned though...

This is the game they’ve played for days. Each appearing and then making themselves lost to the other’s sights before too long. It’s even been speculated on by the soldiers in the tavern that they’re seeing ‘that Vint necro’ around the training grounds a lot lately. Dorian is never of a mind to pay this gossip any attention, though sometimes it hurts him greatly to be thought of as simply ‘the rare one’ of the company. His status as some lone-wolf Tevinter defector makes him feared or hated, depending on who you talk to. He hopes, mostly, that the Inquisitor doesn’t dwell on these common tongues. He has a far quicker, wittier one he could dwell on. 

Idly, the weeks pass around Dorian and Lavellan as they appear to be part of some quiet coup to anyone who watches them. They’re caught in hushed whispers in loud rooms, and caught by their tongues when in pleasant company. Amongst their friends (though they are truly the Inquisitor’s more than they are Dorian’s) they are silent to each other. Dorian is so rarely silent, Lavellan thinks to himself in those situations. Where there is noise there is life – and where there is noise, there is usually Dorian.

Dorian finds he is magnetised to noise like something in his chest pulls him there. He must say something, else the silence fills him. It crawls down his nose and into his throat until he can’t breathe. He must talk to himself if there is no one else and that is what he fears. Moments alone panic the young mage. He is not a man of gospel, either; it’s never taken him. So he never finds the occasion or calling to share his thoughts with a higher power. He is all he needs, Dorian tells himself even as he casts his eyes over Master Lavellan, newest Lord Inquisitor. He watches the lights from the stained-glass touch every curve and corner of the man’s body, how it shapes him anew as a statue. He isn’t special, Dorian assures himself. If anything, Dorian thinks he looks better, but he feels that hunger in his throat and stomach for the Inquisitor. He wants to know what that man tastes like, what he sounds like when he’s alone and intimate. Dorian wants to know all there is to know about the rogue. And feeling is knowing, or the discovery of. Life is to be lived, Dorian reviles as he runs his palms down his toned waist, smoothing out his tunic.

‘I want to know him, but I don’t think it’s that simple.’ Dorian thinks as he stacks a pile of books on a plinth beside himself in the council chambers. He has invited himself to this gathering to inform and be informed of the Tevinter scouting operation.

He takes these moments to look at Leliana, Josephine and Cullen as they are in their unnatural habitats. This is where they come alive, but not as who they are when they are alone. They remake themselves here, he observes. They are feisty and invested, they thirst for action and conquest and secrecy: power, ultimately, but for the people. Dorian admires their unity as he watches them, though they bicker. He wishes, deep down within himself, that he could help people like they do. ‘I try’, his mind quietly interjects, ‘but it never feels like enough’. A stray thought catches him off guard as he considers that perhaps this is what his fancy of the Inquisitor is – some move towards helping others, less an attraction of the man himself. However, Dorian smudges the thought as he catches it, correcting it of it's wrongs that regardless of his blurry motivations, he still wants to undress Lavellan and share with him the quiet intimacies of making love. He _is_ attracted to him regardless.

Master Lavellan is yet to speak, though. Dorian darts his eyes across to him in moments, expecting him to wax about a plan or something, to speak with purpose, but instead he hears nothing. Leliana speaks mostly, with brief interruptions from Cullen. Dorian admires a flick of true blonde hair falling over Cullen’s eye and the thoughtless smoothness with which he brushes it back over his head. It’s a silent display of who Cullen is, Dorian muses to himself; ‘Cullen is a man of composition, balance, made by the manoeuvres of strong hands’. A smile pricks the Tevinter’s lips as he remarks upon the notion that Cullen expects something to stay where he puts it – he is not au fait with the innate chaos of the world. ‘Predictable, but not disappointing’, Dorian assumes. He toys with the idea that Cullen would be a beast in bed, he would luxuriate in having total control over another. Dorian wouldn't mind. He would use his power wisely, but wield it nonetheless. Any lady would be lucky to be at the receiving end of it, Dorian imagines, sensing more than knowing that Cullen would not accept any offer Dorian were ever to make him. Though, the idea of being pushed under heel of pleasure makes Dorian curious. Is it power he’s attracted to perhaps? To relent would be submission and that, Dorian suspects, doesn’t satisfy Cullen because it frightens his understanding of himself. But this, all, is wild speculation of his wandering mind. Dorian sits still, just watching the council as they convene. He is waiting for a silence to fill. Ready to pounce upon it.

-

From the table, all laden with trinkets and markers, the Inquisitor turns his attentions away from the mage behind him. He knows Dorian is there, nestled in some oblique corner, waiting for a chance to strike with the speed of a snake but so thick with charm and seduction to his teeth that he is a snake welcomed in by all. Something about Dorian is magnetic, Lavellan thinks. The very thought that Dorian has come to pry on the Inquisition’s darker doings has put it's leader on edge. He feels he must perform now: he has an audience of one. The notion of a decidedly more private performance for Dorian skitters across his mind, leaving him mute when he is asked “The closed hand of our Agents or the fist of Cullen’s Forces, Inquisitor?” by Josephine.

“Inquisitor?” She asks again, seconded by Leliana.

“Umm.. yes? Sorry.” He catches his thoughts for a moment

“Dorian!” Leliana sparks up, turning her eyes to him now. “Was this you?”

“It wasn’t purposefully me, no.”

“I won’t have you in here if you’re just going to enchant the Inquisitor. He is working.” Her tone is slithery but pointed. Dorian respects her ire, though he truly did not put it there.

“Look-” He offers, setting down his open book and raising his hands, fingers splayed wide. “Leliana, all of you, in fact, you can watch my hands.” He wiggles his fingers ineffectually, more to point out their previous stillness. “I’m not doing anything magical.” He is sure that he is doing something, or he hopes he is. Sadly, Dorian, for all of his magic understanding and training, cannot read minds. Mostly he believes he wouldn’t want to, given what he hears already, he can only imagine what he doesn’t is worse. And for the little benefit of being someone’s sexual fantasy in surprise, it doesn’t seem worth it for everything else that would come with it.

“Could you ask me again, please, Josephine?” The Lord Inquisitor speaks at least, having had Dorian’s little show of self-defence give him time to recover his thoughts. He clears his throat to try and recall the room to him. “And, Dorian, out of the shadows - join us at the table; I’m sure your expertise will be required shortly.”

“I didn’t want to come before called, but of course.” He half-bows ostentatiously, reclaiming his open book and bringing it with him to the table. He lays it open on a free corner near to where The Storm Coast is illustrated. Cullen shifts on his heels beside Dorian, making him feel powerful for no particular reason. Perhaps Dorian was wrong about Cullen, he is yet ready to be surprised by the blonde. He lays his hands flat, palms down, on the war table to disclose (without saying) that he isn't pulling any tricks here. 'But if anyone would like to imagine my doing so, well...'

“To take back the Western Approach, Inquisitor; should we use the closed hand of our Agents or the fist of Cullen’s Forces, do you think?” Josephine redirects the table to where she is standing and pointing with a pencil.

“My heart feels compelled to Cullen on this issue. Leliana, you and your agents could be better used to infiltrate Crestwood and ask around for anything concerning the missing.”

“As you wish, Inquisitor.” Leliana agrees pensively, pulling a small scroll of paper from her sleeves and noting on it an order for the reconnaissance of Crestwood to her agents.

“I’ll get my men in order.” Cullen nods with a small smile. He sidles closer to Josephine to discuss matters of supplies for their travel there. While they discuss quietly, Dorian turns his eyes up from his book on the table and looks at the Inquisitor. He stands with a kind of unstable power, sure of his job but unsure of himself. He toys with a figurine inscribed with a raven over top of a pike that was set upon Haven. He thinks about what they have all come through to get here.

“Dorian, the Venatori outliers towards the Coast,” The Inquisitor sets the idol down as he turns to look at Dorian who is looking back at him with delicate attention. “do you think we can pick them off before they complicate matters with more red lyrium?”

“Certainly. My countrymen are not all as cunning as I. And you have one key advantage over them in their disbanded numbers.”

“Being?” Cullen queries, turning from Josephine as they pause their conversation.

“Me.” Dorian declares proudly, meeting Cullen’s curious gaze. “I was Alexius’ left hand as a prodigy, none else ever got as close. They can fight back and play awfully dirty, sure, but none of them are as finessed as I. Take me with you, and to let me personally thank you for burying the wretched fuckers, I will happily donate to the cause any tomes or riches they’re coveting.” He finishes his display with a short flourish of his hands that dog-ears the corner of the page his open book was on and flutters it closed. “Knowledge is power, after all.” He reigns in his leaning self before he sweeps too far and knocks something precious over. “And with that knowledge – once stolen and then stolen back – comes advantage. Comes training. Comes...”

“What else?” Josephine asks, trying to disentangle Dorian’s meaning from his bragging.

“I don’t know really. Things always sound better in threes though.” He waves his fingers, dismissing himself. The Inquisitor nods then smiles softly, charmed by Dorian’s intentions and hopeful for eventual peace here. Until then, he promises himself to make it if he cannot find it with Dorian. Some quiet then, he hopes, not-so-quiet for them to share. Whatever precious moment that could be though, it is not here nor now. Not that the young leader doesn’t want to press Dorian onto the table right now and make him scream.

“Anything-” The Inquisitor snaps himself out these perpetual daydreams with a crack in his voice. “anything else to discuss?” He gestures his hand out to the others around the table to report or be done with this for the day.

A small show of hands and mumbled dismissals means they’re in agreement that there are no further Council matters to discuss and slowly they all trickle out of the room. Dorian is surprisingly the first to leave. He disappears almost instantly. Before the Inquisitor can follow him, he is reminded by Cullen of further training he needs to do down in the court grounds. He spends most of the afternoon there and lets it become evening around his as he practices his hidden blade strikes. The cold sets in sooner than he had expected however, causing the Inquisitor to fall back indoors before the evening gets truly dark around him. The sky was peach when he began training but has greyed out over time. ‘It is the perfect night to spend in bed with someone’ he agrees with himself but when he looks around the various nooks of Skyhold he can’t find Dorian anywhere, as presumptuous as that looking is. He's certain that they've been on each other's minds in a way that begets more than a peck on the cheek. 'Perhaps he doesn’t want to be found', Lavellan thinks, and then debates that Dorian could be behind him as he walks, following him silently, having made himself invisible. The curiosity in his mind makes him stop and sweep his hand through the air around him, hoping that he hits something warm but he is disappointed to displace only air.

He continues through the halls until he reaches Dorian’s quarters, a rather claustrophobic nook of a room, cluttered with books, vials of flowers and the smell of roses. He knocks, expecting no answer because it’s too early for Dorian to be in bed, surely? So, this time, the Lord Inquisitor is not disappointed to find no answer when he creaks the door open a little. He wonders why the mage hasn’t locked it with magic to keep the world out of his haven, but is comforted that he can see into this world. He leaves a handwritten note on Dorian’s messy desk that reads “We’ll head out tomorrow. Those Venatori aren’t going to bury themselves. Bring your finest. L x” before he slopes back to his own, far larger and suddenly much emptier-feeling quarters.

-

A few more days pass between the rogue and mage as they dance around each other in secret. Exchanging glances and saying nothing with their lips to follow these glances up. Each is so caught up in the dance itself, they may have fallen for that instead. They headed out the morning before last and hunted down some straggler camps of Venatori that Leliana’s agents had brought word of, near The Storm Coast. Since then, Dorian has occupied his time with watching over the Inquisitor as he trains, mostly from his windowed perch in the library but sometimes he walks through the fighters in the flesh.

He doesn’t enjoy the physical experience as much he thought he would. Everybody stares at him down there, he’s not very well-liked which is to say that he’s not understood and few will give him the time of day. For the commoner folk, Dorian is a witch and a blood-curdler. He’s as bad as what’s outside the gates to some, even, but he is merely misunderstood here. He is a Stranger in this strange land he’s trying to call home like he can no longer call Tevinter.

He hates to admit that he’s not always a good man, but he is a better man than Cullen’s soldiers and the stray mercenaries give him credit for. He can barely concentrate on the captivating sight of the Inquisitor at work when he’s amongst the locals; they hiss beneath their breath so often, as though he is here for sport and sport alone. He is the hunter before he again becomes the hunted. This privilege will wash off soon enough, they assume, in their masses. Slurs follow him as he leave the courtyard and slopes through the interior to the garden where there is almost no sound at all. A fate worse, perhaps. but not in this moment, Dorian admits to himself. Even this yawning silence, needing to be filled lest it eat him whole, is better than the whispers that slander him. He does that enough already, must it come from all sides? But the garden at least bears life. In a small fit of spite and anger, Dorian tenses his fist and a nearby cluster of blood lotus wither entirely in the ground. Annoyed at himself then, Dorian shakes his hand out in a futile attempt to undo the death he has brought upon them. He manages it, for a fragment of time, before his summoning must wear off. He grumbles under his breath, feeling exasperated at the last hour's hold of him, deciding then to seek some other feelings in a strong, vinegary bottle of wine.

It is a few hours later into this dusky winter’s eve, that out of the blue, there is an odd coupling of this same Tevinter mage and the boldest Qunari warrior that could ever be found. Anywhere else in the world it might look peculiar, but under the tavern’s shadowing roof it appears as just two companions seeking for some solace amongst music and wine. There is a war on after all, peace is precious where it can be found.

They are both deep into bottles of wine or ale respectively and full on reminiscing about ripping apart Venatori footmen and spellbinders. Calling out for easier times but content at having found the strange camaraderie that they have here, with the Inquisition. 

“There could be worse things that to be strange, don’t you think, Bull?” Dorian asks with dewy eyes, needing to explain no further on why he's asking. He's been hedging around his status as the rare witch boy of the Inquisition. "Slave-owning, blood-curdling, cock-sucking witch boy with the clear hair who raises the dead." Dorian garbles out, realising too late that he's talking out loud. 

“Ignore the men and their loose tongues, magic man.” The Iron Bull tries to comfort Dorian, or at least make a show of support against the rumors he has been hearing about for weeks now. "Not all of those things are strange. And you do have clean hair." Bull tousles Dorian's hair roughly but with some sort of affection. "And, Dorian," Dorian turns to him hearing Bull use his name, a rare occurrence between the two. "sucking a cock is a skill, not an insult."

“So kind of you to say.” Dorian replies flatly, feeling himself about to burst into some ridiculous fit of tears.

“It’s the undeadening, I think, Vint. It unsettles them.”

“But not you?” He asks back, sloppily, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. “I wish you wouldn’t call me Vint, Bull. It makes me feel like one of them. I’m not.” He spills out his words. “I try so hard not to be.”

“I know - I’ve seen you work.” Bull muses slowly but heartfully. “Dorian's just such a mouthful."

"Why don't the men whisper more things like that!" Dorian despairs with a mirthless laugh, with which The Iron Bull joins in. 

"I know you’re not like the other Vints. You and your un-dead spells are your greataxe, but with your small hands and no axe.” He posits as though he’s transformed Dorian’s outlook on himself in one fell swoop.

“My hands aren’t small?” Dorian utters after a thoughtful pause, entirely missing Iron Bull’s point.

“Compared to mine? They are.” Bull mumbles in the background of Dorian’s lament as he begins to rise from his seat. “But that wasn’t my point.” The Qunari extends his huge hand and touches Dorian’s back to stop him leaving. It makes him turn around at least.

“Forgive me, you burly sod. My head’s elsewhere.”

“Whatever it is they say, they speak with rough tongues. They’re not your city folk. Charm isn’t a weapon we ever need on the Coast.”

“I have buckets spare if you ever want any.” Dorian laughs weakly, trying to take Bull’s heartfelt message in.

“You don’t need to defend yourself forever. You have more magic than your charm. Disrobe yourself.”

“It’s called dispelling, for future reference.”

“I didn’t...mean.. I meant literally take everything off and look at yourself.” Bull lumbers for a moment, confused by Dorian’s generous correction. “Embrace that, however strange, to the bones. And then charm them again.” The mage looks The Iron Bull dead in the eye as he ties up his tale, certain of the care that burns deep in his full chest. ‘He is right.’ Dorian realises, as he takes his teeth to his lower lip and tips his head from the floor to the ceiling and back down again in disbelief. Bull has read him clearer than anyone else ever has.

“You should charge by the hour.” Dorian suggests softly, watching Bull dismiss his notion with a swish of his hand. “You’re good.”

“So I’m told.” Bull chuckles, trying to revive the necromancer.

‘You bring so much life with you, for someone so eager to make things dead.’ Dorian thinks to himself, reaching out to hold what he can of Bull’s hand.

“Thank you.” Dorian tells him honestly.

“It takes one to know one is all I’m saying. Strange is our advantage.” Bull smiles, stilling himself a little. He lets himself feel Dorian’s touch for what it is. It means something different to anything they have shared before: Bull suspects he is really feeling Dorian right now. This is no illusion or trick, just his mortal self. His slight fingers are warmer than he expected, but Bull doesn’t think long on this. He holds Dorian’s arm that touches him. Dorian appreciates this gesture of support from the captain.

“In another life, perhaps, I'd thank you with tongues, Bull.” Dorian mourns. “You’d be lucky to have me.” He smirks with a gentle if devious smile that has found its way to his lips. He feels a little warmer already, certain that he will take The Iron Bull’s advice.

“You’d be very lucky to have me.” Bull laughs richly, letting go of Dorian’s forearm. “If you ever find that life, I’ll be here.” Dorian begins to straighten himself up to leave the clamour and warmth of the tavern. “And I’ll repay you in kind with more than just tongues.” He hears Bull tease with a slow, heavy ease that only he can command. Bull is so rarely serious or laboured and that brings he and Dorian some odd kinship, despite their difference. ‘In another life, then.’ Dorian agrees.He genuinely smiles at the warrior, grateful that some of his charm has returned.

Dorian slinks out of the tavern and back to his small but well-decorated quarters. He opens the door from a distance with a very lazy spell, allowing him to pre-emptively fiddle with his various buckles and clasps on his tunic. It’s a short distance he walks, preparing to cast aside his outfit and relearn his body again. He will settle his debts with his differences within himself and know himself better by the end of an hour or two in front of the mirror, he vows. He steps through the door having undone most every buckle and with a distinct, heavy clatter he flings off his tunic to the ground, feeling the sheer weight of it lift off his shoulders.

The loud sound disguises the quieter one, as the mage soon realises. He opens his eyes after a moment’s release from burden to see, sat on his chair in the far corner of the room, the Inquisitor.

“Oh my god!” Dorian exclaims in his nakedness, taken aback to see _him_ here. It’s somewhere between delight and panic.

“Oh!” The Inquisitor gasps again, less from the fright of Dorian’s clothes hitting the floor all in one go this time. “I’m sorry—” He offers, standing from the chair.

“No, I – I had plans, ummm” Dorian stalls, trying to slip behind a near curtain as he talks. He is in no way ashamed of his body, but this feel peculiar to show himself so artlessly to the man who has been on his mind all week.

“Plans?” The Inquisitor asks, tilting his head to try and see around the open door, waiting for someone else to follow him in, in tow.

“Not those kinds of plans,” Dorian explains almost apologetically. “contrary to my state of undress.” He laughs faintly, gesturing to the portion of his body he’s managed to tuck behind a curtain. “What do you take me for, there is a lot to be said for undressing.” The mage defends the assumption that he would be so thoughtless as to simply shag like an animal. ‘There’s so much more to it than that.’

“I see, well, you don’t have to explain yourself to me.” The Inquisitor stays where he stands, offering with an open, calling hand that Dorian come out from behind the curtain. “You can come out, it’s not anything I’ve not seen before.”

“Scandalous!” Dorian laughs aloud, feeling something close to delirium for how swiftly derailed his evening has become. “That I don’t doubt though.” He chirps, sticking an arm out and pointing at his bed. “It’s not that, just throw me something would you? A sheet or something, whatever you can reach.” The sound of rustling fabric passes through the small silence which Dorians cuts in half to explain himself. “This isn’t how I ever foresaw this going.”

“Catch.” The Inquisitor says, throwing the sheet onto Dorian’s grasping arm.

“I am a showman but this takes the cake somewhat.” He elaborates, wrapping himself in it and coming out from behind the plush blue velvet curtains. “There. I’m decent again, avert your gaze no more.” He laughs a little, trying to wash away the strangeness of the moment before.

“And if I wanted to look?” The Inquisitor offers in a whisper, testing the water as he then sits himself at the end of Dorian’s long, grand bed.

“Then I wouldn’t blame you.” Dorian utters with assurance and a wry smile, feeling some heat rising in his chest. “I just usually like a little more foreplay is all.” He tenders, walking out to stand in front of the cross-legged rogue in his bed. There, he smiles widely, perhaps unable to stop himself as he looks up at Dorian’s perfect features. He stifles the thought before it reaches his tongue, instead watching Dorian as he lays his hands onto the ornamental post of the bed.

“I don’t want to stick a knife through this tender moment, but why are you here? In my room. Under cover of darkness.” Dorian inquires with a confident but quietened voice, aware that he has left the door wide open.

“You’ve been on my mind all day,” Master Lavellan starts with a soft expression that curls into a smile. “and now you’ll be on it all night.”

“And that’s why you came?”

“Honestly, no.” Lavellan speaks truthfully, as though he is compelled to in Dorian’s magnetic presence. Something within him is safe and humbled all at once, he knows that here there is no ceremony nor care for it. Dorian’s eyes betray that he is only interested in the man and not the myth.

“Then, to what do I owe the honour of you being in my bed?” He murmurs, leaning forward to rest his upper body on his hand that clutch the bedpost.

“I came to ask – I wanted to talk to you.” Lavellan leans back a little, unsure of letting himself get closer to Dorian lest he do something rash. The air between them feels charged. The Inquisitor can smell Dorian’s perfume, it makes him light-headed. Dorian waits for once, sensing that an answer is coming. “How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Last week, in front of my eyes; turning the seed into the flower.”

“A trick of the light, my dear boy.” He grins and clicks his fingers, lighting a candle behind himself on a wall sconce. “Everything more or less is.” He hums, then sweeping his hand delicately in a half-circle which passes the flame from each candle to the next, bathing half of the room in a warm amber glow. With the same hand he changes softly pushes the back of his hand towards the open door and urges it closed without moving an inch towards it. Dorian was frankly getting off on his own display of power. He had the Inquisitor rapt, in the palm of his hand. He had seduced even himself.

Dorian slides the sheet further up his arm and reveals a small blue flower resting inside his bracelets, as though it had been there the entire time to somehow dissuade the Inquisitor of Dorian’s magic being truthful and not mere trickery. It was actually an exquisite trick of conjuration all done while he was talking. With his free hand, Dorian plucks the flower free from his wrist.

“May I?” He purrs, feeling not need to speak any louder at this distance. The Inquisitor, seemingly struck into silence, nods and chokes out something that sounds like ‘please’. In a simple, measured motion, Dorian lifts the flower up and tucks it over the rogue’s ear, letting his fingers rest there for just a moment in a soft cradle.

The mage leans back and adores his work, happy to linger like this for a long while but before he can, he is interrupted. Sitting himself up on his haunches, Lavellan leans forwards and kisses Dorian’s cheek. It’s brief, nearly chaste, followed with the Inquisitor’s fingers and thumb turning the mage’s head to face him. Dorian is almost lost for words... almost.

“It’s late, Inquisitor.” He breathes. “Stay.”

“I’m not interrupting your plans?” The rogue whispers with a teasing smile, lifting himself to kneel to stop Dorian from leaning.

“I’ve made new ones.” Dorian seals his wine-soaked mouthful with a kiss, pulling the Inquisitor into his embrace, curling an arm around his neck and up into his hair like a snake. Dorian tastes of no vintage in particular, but, to the Inquisitor’s taste, he brings an acidity curdling with his offset sweetness. Strawberries, maybe? He would ask but it’s rude to talk with your mouth full. 


	3. Clementines, maybe?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something carnal could become something beloved, but is it still a game between the rogue and the mage?

One kiss tumbles into the next as Dorian climbs over the end of the bed and pushes Lavellan up the bed with his body. His slow ascent is filled with the stifled sighs and sticky-lipped kisses that each have been dreaming of tasting. The feeling of it has been pinched from Heaven itself. Dorian leans up a little and smiles widely at the Inquisitor, sliding his fingers between buckles and into creases of his clothes as he tries to pry them free. His eyes are alight.

The Inquisitor beneath him fights with his own clothes the best he can. He feels his fingers tangle with Dorian’s as they tease the cotton and velvet from his body. Piece of items shirk off until they are free of them. Somewhere in the tussle, Dorian’s sheet was slung from him.

“There-” Dorian breathes out against the young rogue, his voice now hot on his skin. “look at you.” He marvels with his mouth pressed to Lavellan’s ear. Dorian brushes his fingertips along the Inquisitor’s inner arms and down the sides of his chest, skimming them up his hips and onto his own thighs where their two bodies meet. The Inquisitor grins, reaching his hands out to envelope the mage’s wrists as he pulls himself up to sitting. He snakes Dorian’s hands around his waist while they’re still under his control, delighting in the smirk that grows on Dorian’s lips.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all week.” The Inquisitor hums as he openly kisses Dorian’s throat, feeling each sigh as it travels under his teeth. He takes in the gentle aroma of the mage’s skin. Up close, he smells like oranges and wine. ‘Clementines, maybe?’ The Inquisitor debates as he commits the thought to memory.

“Only all week?” Dorian utters with a sharp intake of air, digging his fingers into the rogue’s lower back. He tries to laugh but they fall out of his soft mouth as moans. Master Lavellan tuts an ‘uh-uh-uh’ against Dorian’s reddened skin, careful not to waste this growing high. He lets Dorian’s wrists go and crawls his hand up from the mage’s pelvic bone to his neck as he urges him down flat onto the bed.

They rearrange themselves deftly, allowing the Inquisitor a moment to adore Dorian’s sculpted, tanned body. It was so easy and little it seems, for this moment to become the whole night. ‘The smile, that curl of his lips against his own, that feeling...’ Dorian blushes into the Inquisitor’s touch as they wrap their fingers around each other. What a soft kiss bore has become carnal and heavy.

“A little more foreplay, you said?” The Inquisitor whispers with his face pressed into Dorian’s hair as he leans over the slightly older man’s adored body. He traps Dorian’s earlobe between his teeth for a moment, sucking it as he rests a hand on Dorian’s stomach, feeling him breathe twice. Something that sounds like ‘fuck’ slips past the mage’s smiling lips. It verges on bloodsport for an hour of two, in the pursuit of simple fun. The tentative breath they share becomes an all-encompassing swell of their lungs in unison as the Inquisitor teases himself inside Dorian, surely enough to bring their bodies together in a lush fit. The mage coughs out a breath in some curdling of shock and ecstasy. They could do this all night, and, for the most part, they do.

Dorian can feel Lavellan’s heart pounding in his palms as they sink into his messed up sheets. The burden of being so aware of lifeblood as it makes his lover’s skin sing. He must only feel it’s breathless tightness and nothing more, not of his almost death that knocks at his ribs when they fuck like animals do. Tireless and loud, each breath snatched, claws where fingers were; and it is delectable.

The hours waned with the moon, as the sky turned dark when they weren’t looking. This carnal night was something to Dorian, as he hoped it was to the Inquisitor too. It could be simply sex, though any more than that would be foolish to hope for. Yet, hope he did.

The Tevinter mage had been on the cusp of so many great loves that flourished into disappointment or abandonment, tempted by so many touches and voices and the flicks of wrists that he felt something pull his heart further inside him this time. He had lost himself to his work for so long after his affairs, or whatever they were, with Rillenus. A sweet boy, to be sure. ‘Too respected by other to possibly be seen...’ Dorian shakes off the thought as best he can. He can’t remember that heartbreak again, not so soon. If any fondness were to come of that shattering of his earth, it is that in letting himself be soft he learned to value his vulnerability for the knife that it was. It was lodged in his chest permanently. Only he could see it and he couldn’t bear for anyone else to, in case they pulled it. In the grip of sleep, Dorian worries off the skin-tingling high of coming three times in the arms of this wiry, fascinating man.

He was more a master of his craft now that he ever was before his heart broke, because he forced himself into study and practice to occupy his mind with facts, all clinical practical thoughts that had nothing to do with chance and all to do with results. He wanted power when he was at his most helpless. He had to work, to think, to recreate. He wanted to possess all he could of life, and he did. Though his studies into the hallowed and oft-frowned-upon craft of Necromancy left his grip on life somewhat skewed. He could control anything living that had no will of it’s own. Spirit are will-less enough that he can grasp them as they linger in the fade. He can conjure light and fire, some displacement of the elements that live in the air around them, those which make up every being. He can quite literally suck the air out of a room if he ever felt like it. And that’s it – he can’t influence anything with a mind of its own. Least of all himself. He can sense it, feel it; but can’t control it. He could never stop with magic what has happened to him, no matter how hard he’s wanted to. He couldn’t charm himself to feel less, to forget, to have others adore him or protect him. They and he would have to _want_ to. So, after all of his efforts, he has no more control where he needed it. His studies brought him here, if anything. Without Alexius and his corruption, his madness, he would never have found the man he sleeps in the crook of. He would never have found this exact worry or the climax that brought it to life.

At times like this, as with all those that followed his abandonment by Rillenus and the panic that brought it to being, Dorian wishes he could be a simpler form of life. Less complicated, free of his will and his mind; what he wouldn’t give to be born to blossom and then bloom to perish. Little does the mage ever realise, he has lived this cycle many times and will continue to. He simply cannot see it yet.

Besides him, the Inquisitor dreams restlessly. His mind is full of horror and fright, within which is a peaceful light that pushes the darkness to the corners. It has a voice and it laughs at him with warmth. It’s telling him a joke and it smells of clementines. He, without realising, reaches out in his slumber and grabs Dorian’s wrist and holds onto it all night, so as not to lose him. They stay close all night, despite their shared yet separate dreams full of fear. They find comfort in the reality that they are not conscious to, until morning comes.

When it does, a cooling breeze comes with it. Dorian had left a window open, he realises, as he feels a chill touch his skin. He wearily opens one eye and looks ahead, trying not to move as he feels where there is warmth against his skin as he comes back into the reality that he is nestled against the naked body of the Inquisitor. He smiles gently as he laxly flicks his fingers towards the window and persuades the air around it to nudge it closed. His eyes are accustomed to the light enough to open them both as he feels the urge to get up. He wriggles free of his warm cocoon, prising the rogue’s fingers around his wrist in order to leave him asleep. He stand up and simply admires the sleeping form of the lithe, olive-toned herald. ‘He is chosen, and now in my bed.’ Dorian hears himself in his own mind. ‘Divine intervention’ He croons internally, unsure what this means now. As it did on the fringes of sleep, so again comes concern as he feels the empty cavern of his ribs reminds him of just how hollow it is. A lifeless garden, and his own little secret one. He could plant it full of flowers for what it’s worth. His smiles falters then, and he makes a gesture with his hand by his side that urges the air where he was to stay warm so the Inquisitor sleeps still. He doesn’t want him to see himself like this. Cracked, broken, until he can put the pieces together enough to face the day.

Carefully and quietly, Dorian pads on his bare feet to the washroom. An ache that started in his ribs and wrists grows until it holds him still before the dusty mirror. It is an old, familiar panic that consumes him; one of worthlessness and confusion. One which grabs at his throat and won’t let him open his eyes until it has told him what it thinks of him. It tells him often of the price on his skin. And still, Dorian fights it. He is stubborn in the face of it, even when it shakes him. He forces it into the far reaches of his mind – praying for the day when it loses its will or its mind and he can grab it with both hands and throttle the spiteful spirit of feeling. He breathes heavily, quickly, but trying to calm his racing heart. He tells himself to truth to dispel the repetition of thoughts thumping through his head and stinging behind his eyes.

‘So little of myself left to give’, Dorian insists for he knows it to be true, turning on the tap, now unable to think about how the noise will wake the sleeping man in his bed. ‘I don’t know if I have the heart to try anymore’. Yet, he reaches for it; eyes still closed tightly. He touches his fingers to his chest and tries to feel for it, beating. Every time he searches, he thinks he is dead until he finds it. The water running over his other hand begins to scald his skin and he does not stop it, though he could with a clearer head. The thump is quiet. Alright – proof enough of life. “I’ll give you mine if you give me yours.” He mutters under his breath. That is a promise. He will try again, as much as he can. The Inquisitor gives him hope enough to. ‘How droll, how fucking soppy’, Dorian remarks to himself, unable to let himself even have this small victory over his cruel mind. He smiles grimly as he shuts off the tap, looking to his slightly burned hand and trying to cool it with the other, readying himself to go back to the bedroom.

He returns to his bedroom to see the Inquisitor awake, watching for his return.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Dorian apologises softly, trying to hide his hand from view.

“No, still your worry.” Lavellan chuckles, sitting up. “I’m a light sleeper.” He notices Dorian’s attempts to hide his hand and offers his anchored own to the mage. Dorian says nothing but agrees, revealing his with something like embarrassment. “I heard the tap too.” Master Lavellan admits quietly, looking for Dorian’s gaze as he tries to avert it. Andraste’s herald holds his stinging hand and watches as a striking green glow lights them both up a little more that the daylight does. The pain eases with the light, Dorian notices, feeling his hand cool down. That coolness settles into numbness briefly.

“And here I thought that was just for effect.” Dorian murmurs introspectively, unsure for a moment what has happened. He only know he can’t feel his hand for a second, just the Inquisitor’s around it.

“I’m all flash no heat.” The Inquisitor jokes with a supportive smile.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” Dorian disagrees with a flirtatious tilt of his head. “What did you just do?” He asks earnestly.

“Dispelled a little bad magic.” He offers a seat beside himself as he shuffles to one side. Dorian takes it, in something of a stupor. “I know this castle, Dorian. These taps barely turn on, let alone get hot enough to scald.” The Inquisitor admits, not asking for anything further of the man.

“I—” Dorian stutters, not know what to say or where to start.

“Don’t.” He cautions. “Please. It’s gone now and the moment with it.” Lavellan’s hand tightens around Dorian’s in a show of comfort. “I won’t ask for anything you don’t want to tell me.”

“I don’t know what to say---” Dorian expresses with soft shock, truly at a loss as to how to feel about this unbridled display of care.

“Say nothing. And then I get the honour of having made you speechless. Twice.” The rogue grins and brings his free hand up to the side of Dorian’s face, turning it by the chin to face his. To stop him fumbling an apology, the Inquisitor presses his lips to the mage’s. They are warm and taste as sweet as they did last night. It takes the mage a brief moment to make the kiss his own, possessing it from the giver’s lips and holding it within his own. It becomes something velvet and indulgent.

“I’m so rarely speechless.” Dorian murmurs as he pulls back from the Inquisitor, noticing the now crushed flower still tucked over his ear. “But the pleasure was all mine.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” The Inquisitor chirps with a soft, drawing smile. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” Dorian replies, stealing another long kiss before he retires to find his clothes from amongst the Inquisitor’s strewn over the floor. ‘What indiscretion it would be to end up wearing pieces of each other’s clothing’, Dorian wonders as he tries on the Inquisitor’s small doublet for size. “Bit tight.” He thinks aloud as he takes it off again. ‘No matter, I’m sure the open window did most of the rumour spreading for us’. He manages to own this indiscretion as something self-posessing and not the font of more worry. Rumours bring life with them, though mostly bad. But once one has started, he can introduce his own into the mix. Besides, they already existed before last night. Now they just have a certain volume attached to them.

A few days blight the castle in bad rain. Dorian takes this chance to stay warm inside, cursing the South for its damp coldness even when it’s bright let alone when it’s teeming with rain. He finds the time to tend to his smaller projects of flowers in the greenhouse, just off of Skyhold’s garden. He debates that he could try and transform the weather affecting the garden just for practice but he does enough that there is a clear path for him to the greenhouse that is dry and untouched by rain. There are already a few soaked pilgrims inside the greenhouse when he gets there, quietly muttering to themselves and scribbling notes. A few even come here to read in this weather specifically, he has found, assumedly to listen to the hammering of the rain. Even he concedes that there is some comfort to be found in such relentless noise, knowing you are safe from it.

“You _do_ grow some then?” He hears from a few feet away. A smile finds his lips as he turns, gesturing graciously to the pots of flowers beside himself.

“Of course! What do you take me for? A hack! A charlatan?”

“Well maybe that second one.” The Inquisitor debates with his hands firmly on his hips, leaning on the spot.

“Only if you ask nicely.” He purrs, loud enough that anyone near the pair could easily interpret the meaning of their words. The rain obscures it to those who are not listening.

“A threat or a promise?” The taller man parries with a subtle wink.

“It’s not all using my powers for good, dear Lord of Knives.” Dorian smirks. “Some of my talents extend to the banal, like gardening.”

“It must be the thought of getting your hands dirty, that animal attraction to the earth...” The herald ponders, careful to skirt past Dorian when he walks behind him. His orange scent is muddled with soil now.

“Far be it from me to gain a reputation of not getting my hands dirty _– I love it_.” He practically sings the end. “If you’re going to start a rumour, at least make it a good one.” He advises the Inquisition’s leader as he tinkers with stems and seedlings. The Inquisitor takes a second to watch Dorian’s hands working, noticing the burn from a few days ago all but healed. It concerns him still, but he refuses to push him on the matter. It could have been a careless mistake but he knows in his heart that if Dorian is not one thing it is careless.

“Of course, I forgot who I was talking to – the master of the rumour mill.” The Inquisitor admonishes himself playfully, stepping back and almost bumping into an alchemist behind him.

“At your service, my liege.” Dorian plays along, knowing that he is not actually the rumour master here, he only wishes he were. “He who controls the tongue, controls the world.” He posits, growing a little weary of the loudness of the rain on the roof.

“ _And he does_.” The Inquisitor delights in praising him so lewdly.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” Dorian gleefully tempts the rogue as he turns away from him with a holding hand. “A minute, if I can ask so much. This rain’s giving me a headache.” Dorian shakes the remnant earth from his hands and slips closer to the doorway to the garden, whereby he leans out. Standing in the increasing shower of rain, he turns his palms upwards to the rain as it soaks him. Drawing a line with his foot in the earth, he sways both hands to one side and inexplicably the water moves with them. He closes both hands into fists and the rain over the garden suddenly stops.

The Inquisitor watches in amazement at this needless magic show. From out of which, Dorian returns to the significantly quieter greenhouse, a little damper for his work.

“Why not do yourself first?” The Inquisitor questions, after a moment.

“That age old question.” Dorian leers as he brushes water from his shoulders, slicking his now wet hair back with an easy motion.

. “One supersedes the other with blanketing spells. If I did, it’d pour all the water from the larger into the smaller one. I’d rather not get so wet in polite company.”

“Promises, promises.” The Inquisitor says, now occupying the other side of the same doorway. “Tell me more.”

“If I did the area around me and then the whole garden, well; the first spell slits the fade open to disperse the water elsewhere. The second, bigger, seeks the path of least resistance, so it will follow that to the same end as the first. It sees the first rip of the fade as a sort of vessel, a very clear path to a quick end. Et voila! It would’ve near drowned me.”

“So somewhere in the fade is just filling up with our rainwater now?”

“This is why a mage never reveals his tricks. It spoils the flash of it all.”

“It does. I will stop asking. Your shine’s coming off.” The Inquisitor laughs as he brushes some water from Dorian’s other shoulder. There’s a disgruntled huff further up the greenhouse as someone now holding a closed book strops away, abhorring at the now noisier-in-a-different-sense greenhouse.

“You didn’t come all this way out here just for me, did you?” Dorian asks, now settled a little more having banished the rain.

“I’m just doing my rounds of the castle.”

“I’m always disappointed to learn it’s not all about me.” Dorian shrugs self-effacingly.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I can make it up to you later?” The Inquisitor murmurs, leaning in closer to Dorian as he pretends to be interested in some tincture bottle behind Dorian’s head.

“You can try.” Dorian tempts him with a low growl, ducking underneath the herald’s stretched out body as he leans, worming his way under him and around his back to stroll further down the greenhouse. As he passes the rogue, Dorian strokes his hand up the Inquisitor’s leg and around onto his hip. The Inquisitor forces himself to bite his lip to not make a sound as he aggressively concentrates on the brown glass bottle in his hand. “Don’t break that, Inquisitor.” Dorian announces as he leaves. “It’s the Tears of the Dead.” He leaves feeling awfully satisfied in himself, unsure of where to go once he’s made his very public exit. He slinks away to his spot in the library and decides to look up anything further on blanketing spells.

“Not to flog a dead horse,” The Inquisitor mumbles as he eases his face up from it’s rest in Dorian’s hair. The first few sounds get lost in Dorian’s scalp, but he’s sure he can interpret that it was simply the opening to a question.

“But you’re going to get your whip hand ready, I’m sure-” Dorian gently chastises the naked rogue before he asks something that’s been on his mind all night.

“But there’s something I want to ask you.”

“My favourite subject, of course.” The mage’s smile is slow but his eyes are bright. The sight of him in the Inquisitor’s arms is something to behold.

“The shade illusion, in the library, that trick; you talk about it like you can’t do it.”

“I’m not hearing a question here, O Good Lord Inquisitor.” He turns his head to look to the rogue above him.

“Well, I learnt it. Is it not as simple as learning it for you?”

“I can’t – to be brief.”

“Can’t learn it?”

“No, love, I can’t illude myself. I know it. I know it’s call and it’s gestures and anything that could be taught of it, I just can’t do it.” He softens his body into the rogue’s, turning into his chest before sitting upright. “I’ve never had much of a talent for illusory-magic. I can’t transmute anything not-living.”

“It’s a fine metal powder bomb...” The rogue demystifies what he thinks the confusion is.

“For you, yes. It’s alchemy.” He turns his hand over and makes an exploding palm gesture which he sweeps in front of his face. “But not for me, sweet one. I’m a mage, I can transform matter but, stunted by my study into Necromancy, I’m a slave to living and no-longer-living matter.” He flicks his wrist and lights a fire between two fingers. “You see, for me, I would transmute my being to simply be translucent, not cloud myself with a metal powder miasma that suggests that illusion for me.” He lets his fingers go and the fire extinguishes like a match. “But, to put it simply, my clothes get stuck.”

“What?” The Inquisitor asks, attentive though sleep clouds his thoughts. It is awfully late, but the hours flew while they were having fun.

“Watch.” He offers, stretching a hand out.

“But you’re not wearing anything?”

“My jewellery does too.” The mage smiles wryly, and, with a revealing swipe of his other hand, he removes the pigment and opacity from his skin. Lavellan marvels as he can see through where Dorian’s hand was a moment ago. True to his word, the Inquisitor notes that Dorian’s rings and bracelets are hanging in the air of their own accord, seemingly. On one level he’s amazed, but on another try to stop yourself from laughing.

The Inquisitor watches as the rings float towards him and feels as Dorian runs a hand across his cheek without seeing it. He brings his hand, since slung over the mage’s waist, up to touch Dorian’s. With a careful slowness of movement, Lavellan kisses Dorian’s hidden fingers, watching as a soft smile curls his moustache upwards.

“Enough surprise for one night, I think.” Dorian murmurs, flexing his free hand into a fist and then splaying it out over the Inquisitor’s face to dispel the transmution.

“I’ll try and think of a use for that.” The Inquisitor mumbles with closed eyes, as he holds Dorian’s visible-again-hand in his. He carries it down in his own to wrap around Dorian’s neck until it cradles his head. The two kiss sleepily, with more meaning than any kiss before it. Or, at least, Dorian suspects so.

This not-so-secret affair is getting its hooks in him. It feels more than just a game. The sudden and strange, almost suffocating comfort he feels wash over him as they kiss is what Dorian hopes those feel upon death. Peace, perhaps, it could be confused for. With certainty, Dorian kisses the Inquisitor back, hoping that he feels this too.


	4. There are many ways to prepare for battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Lavellan share a moment of doubt, and dream of brighter nights on the roof together as they enter the Fade.

They fall apart from the gentle caress of a kiss shared in a doorway to separate ends of Dorian’s bed. News encircles them that soon they must take to the Fade in search of Corypheus’ next steps. If they could foil him in the space between. perhaps that could upset his grip on this world, though Dorian doubts the possibility. The Fade is a place of dreams for some and manifest nightmares for others, and only seasoned mages know where fear may tread in that lingering mire. It is a world of glass that asks not to be touched, and yet they plan to crash into it and take no quarter, claiming only to follow in the steps of the last man who wrecked the place. But, it’s not that which gnaws at the mage most. He sets his eyes on the Inquisitor who searches his fingers for answers without voicing questions. The Tevinter reaches out and strokes the man’s ear with his thumb, trying to break him from whatever sinking thoughts steal him from the room. It doesn’t encourage such a reaction, the rogue simply stares at him, like he is confused as to why he’s here at all.

“Normally I can’t get a word in edge-ways, between sweet nothings whispered in my ear, but tonight, love---” Dorian elaborates on his troubled thoughts, taking a seat at the opposite end of the bed, just watching. “-you’re quiet. What’s troubling you, O Lord Inquisitor?” The mage senses the rogue is in some sort of pit, internally. He can feel his heart is all over the place when he sets his hands to the space between them. “Give words of your fears to dread Tevinter and see them eased.” He offers with a soft, cajoling smile.

“It’s not magic, is it?” The Inquisitor asks, a soft shake in his words. “I need to know.”

“What isn’t, dear one?”

“The way I want you. What I feel for you.” The Inquisitor is scared to ask, Dorian doesn’t even need to listen to his heartbeat for proof of that. Dorian has been waiting for this question. “You can’t make me feel that, can you, by magic?”

“No, _amatus_. That’s not a spell.” Dorian responds sombrely, a quietening takes over his tongue as his words fall off the end of it. “Are you---” He begins to ask, feeling the rupture between as it cracks the bed in half as they sit at either end of it. “-are you having second thoughts? About this. About _us_.”

“No—” The rogue is crumpled up in a ball, looking up at the ceiling with a despair in his eyes that Dorian knows by name. “No, Dorian, I just—I needed to know before we go into the fade.”

“That this was not a trick of my hands?”

“I didn’t mean that-“

“You went with it for a month, unsure whether I was puppeteering you to be my lover? And the fade breaks your back enough to ask me.” Dorian is rendered speechless and hurt as he disentangles the herald’s words.

“You’re putting words into my mouth.” The Inquisitor laments as he finally looks Dorian in the eye.

“Then tell me!” Dorian snaps, not meaning to sound so angry. “Tell me—what’s going on here?” He reiterates, trying to stay calm.

“I know that place enough, or enough of it, to know it twists you up. It turns things against you and I can’t bear to think it would turn you on me.” The rogue voices his fears, trying to pull them from his chest like pins in doing so.

“So you do that yourself?” Dorian’s words are quiet, uttered with pieces of his heart in them. If only he could dispel this memory from being, but alas; that was not within his power.

“It seems so!” The Inquisitor catches a cry in his throat, leaning forwards and placing his hands flat on Dorian’s bed. “I just needed to know it was real.”

“I don’t want this to be the knife that cuts us, amatus.” Dorian offers, ever quiet. “I didn’t do this by magic. As easy as cracking my heart is by you asking, this _is_ real.” He moves to touch the Inquisitor’s hands but thinks twice on the idea. “That twisted place of violent dreams holds no power over this part of us. We do that harm enough ourselves.”

“Dorian, I didn’t intend to hurt you--”

“Were that your knives as sharp as your tongue, the Fade would not think to touch you.” Dorian tries to joke.

“But I did and I’m sorry." The Inquisitor doesn't dignify Dorian's self-effacing comment, as though he doesn't even here it for his own thoughts. "It wracks at my nerves that Corypheus could pick us up by that thread between our hearts, or that he could sever it.”

“It would take more than the crusty old hand of an ancient Tevinter noble to pull your will from mine.” Dorian assures the Inquisitor who has at last stopped trembling. He realises the depth of his feelings for the Lord as he gives voice to them, to him, that they are deeper than he thought they could ever root. He would die for this man, in a heartbeat; that much he knows. But, if he does, Dorian prays that it isn’t in the Fade. To be trapped in a nightmare inside a dream would be a torment too heavy for his soul. That fear takes him by the throat suddenly and brings him the briefest notion of his death, one day, and he fears it because it would be the end of all this. He speaks to rid the vile premonition from his mind. “Soon, and on the other side, we will talk all night and realise that the Fade was not what we had to fear at all.” Dorian sniffles, he turns his eyes to look out of the window. “But I wouldn’t have you alone before then. If you promise to shut up.” He attempts to laugh, feeling the horrible welling of tears in his throat. He coughs them up mostly and feels the Inquisitor crawl across the bed to him as he brushes his fingers over his face. He shoos away the notion of his crying by twinkling his fingers before his bleary eyes and claiming “all better”.

The pair wraps themselves around each other like snakes, hungering for warmth in this darkest of moments. They are too raw to pursue touch any further, they take this night for healing. They stay close all evening, sharing pieces of kisses with the other. Dorian combs Lavellan’s hair and paints his nails. “There are many ways to prepare for battle”, he claims. The rogue doubts that this will bring him any advantage on the field other than knowing Dorian will be there for him, but that is more than his enemies have. As the light dwindles around them, Dorian spark to light a few candles and the Inquisitor spends almost an hour massaging Dorian’s bad shoulder. They say next-to-nothing all night, neither having the words or clarity of mind to shape thoughts into something that would mellow the wounds that their touches try to dispel from each other.

Fatigue takes Dorian to sleep before Lavellan for a change, and the rogue seizes upon that time to lets a swelling and fearful sigh leave his chest. It’s something to the point of tears but is gone as quickly as it rose within him. It was a dying breath that was not his own, as he watches over the sleeping mage beside him. He spends an hour and a bit like that until he feels drowsiness pricks at his eyelids too. He leaves Dorian’s side briefly to blow out the remaining candles, before returning to him and placing a lasting kiss on his forehead.

“For your heart, amatus. Thank you.” The Inquisitor whispers with closed eyes.

They both must wake into a day that holds a fearful task for them both.

They both fell through the Adamant rift, in arm with Cassandra and Cole, lost to their eyes somewhere. and yet all Dorian can think of is the view of a night sky over Skyhold, as he surveys the wastes that this image of the Fade presents.

Skyhold boasted sublime views of Fereldan, and even some of Orlais on a clear day. Sadly, neither the rogue or the mage lying on one of it’s smaller rooftops, wrapped in the blanket of the night sky, were of a mind to take in the views. Dorian thinks that this is truly everything he thought it would be; and that includes chilly, so he brought a blanket.

“I’ve been thinking about that little shade trick you do.” Dorian opens, his face turned into the moonlight for a moment.

“Yes?” The Inquisitor follows up, watching the stark light cut apart his nuance. “Are you jealous?” The air is cool up here. It carries the Inquisitor’s sultry hush far out across the balustrades.

“It’s like a cloak you wear. Or like a curtain, perhaps—" Dorian finds comfort in mocking himself in this moment. “To disappear completely. That would be some sweet relief, it seems like. To me at least. One brief moment’s peace away from the world. Away from eyes that breed life with their stories and ideas. Everyone dreams your life for you, to themselves.”

“You make it sound so romantic, Dorian.” Lavellan laughs softly, nudging his elbow.

“Oh not romantic, amatus, you must have me mistaken for some Southern sap.” Dorian smiles widely, sliding his fingers in between the Inquisitor’s. “Maybe it’s the weather getting to me.”

“Maybe it’s the softness of old age.” Master Lavellan teases the Tevinter who jabs him in the ribs with a perfectly placed elbow.

“What love has brought together let no man tear asunder. Unless one of those men calls the other one old.” Dorian quips, resting his head on the rogue’s shoulder.

“Oh, love, now; is it?”

“Sorry, have I spoiled it for you? Told you what was coming next?” Dorian purrs with a feline richness.

“But the lust alone was so rich! So many... unexplored avenues.” The rogue slips his right hand seamlessly across Dorian’s hip bones and under his waistband.

“I forget they’re mutually exclusive in the South, aren’t they? It’s sex or marriage – nothing else and never together.” Dorian grins, settling his body against the Inquisitor’s. The feeling of his throbbing cock against his back completes the picture he had in his mind of this moment. “May I tempt you in some un-Southern ways?” The mage utters with a rich, heavy tongue, leaning back into the rogue properly.

“Explore some avenues?” The rogue growls, pressing Dorian against himself with his buried hand.

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Dorian smirks as he takes the Inquisitor’s searching hand in his own and pushes is down flat to the stone beneath them. He quickly gets up and turn himself over, swapping hands that press the Inquisitor down. The mage is now on top of the rogue, facing him, straddling his waist with his thighs. His lips pressed against the Inquisitor’s own for a wholesome second before the memory is disrupted.

This is no longer a place for fond things. They both must toughen themselves for this twisted place. They must walk this unstable path and follow the steps of destruction if they are to find Corypheus or, so it seems now they’re here, one of his agents of chaos. By Dorian’s estimation, an old-God worshipping martyr intent on bringing back when times were good for them alone, thoughtless of the wider worldview.

“Inquisitor?” He calls out into the curdled dimness in front of him.

“Inquisitor!” Dorian can hear Cassandra call nearby.

“This place? Is not my-not-mine-not what once was this own place---I can’t be here. I can’t be here!” He hears the panic and fret of Cole ever closer and thinks he feels the boy brush his side as he wades forwards, not thinking to look down and question what gives the land beneath him such weight and depth. “Dorian!”

“I’m here, Cole.” Dorian answers aloud, as loud as his voice will let him to comfort the waif in this crooked realm. “Cassandra!” He calls again, finding Cole as some light clears before him. “Cole, have you found Lavellan?” Dorian worries as he trudges, holding Cole’s hand to keep him stilled here.

“Inquisitor! Please, send me back!” Cole shouts in search, though Dorian’s certain touch helps to calm him.

“Focus on me, Cole. I’ve got you. Don’t look at this place, it’s not what you know it to be. This is a crooked mirror.” Dorian reassures the troubled boy as sincerely as his tone will allow. He hold both of his hands in his own as he talks. “Follow my hurt, Cole. You know it as well as I do, listen to it and concentrate on that. It will keep you in our grasp, alright?”

“Dorian!” Cassandra shouts in relief as she stumbles on him and Cole in a cluster of rocks and shards of buildings. “I’ve found you, at last.” She breathes, clutching her sword a little looser.

“Dorian!” A voice distils itself through the fog. “Cassandra?” It comes again. “Cole?”

“Inquisitor!” Dorian and Cassandra both yell at once, summoning the rogue to their position as best they can.

“It is him. In the hurt, somewhere, a tangled string, still your heart, at the heart of you, your heart is hurt but he is not it. I’ll pull and see if he comes.” Cole spews his thoughts taken from the deepest parts of Dorian’s subconscious, and the mage is unable to stop him. He cannot begrudge the boy having something to hold onto here, he simply wishes it wasn’t so deeply personal to him. But this wanting in and of itself, Cole hears and apologises for with a short, soft “Sorry”. Yet, Cole pulled well, the Inquisitor appears, tripping over stones and tar as he comes into view. He holds a knife in each hand as though he has already had to fight some monstrous construction away from himself. ‘He is alive though, and seemingly unscathed.’ Dorian thanks the stars in a flitting thought. Shortly following the Inquisitor, Dorian and company see Hawke and Stroud come into view. The fog that filled this space to choking has dissipated, at least. Dorian and Cole share the sense that it is still in the air, just choosing to be invisible.

Dorian flinches and begins to stride towards Lavellan but stops himself before he turns to Cole, still clutching the boy’s small, cold hands.

“Can I let go, Cole? Only for a moment.” Dorian both asks and promises, cut off before he can make a forced joke about three being a party.

“I can hear you now, Dorian. Thank you. Your hands are your own.” Cole smiles a little, as much as he ever does. Dorian is gladdened to know that Cole is tethered to them and calmer than he was. He nods approvingly at the strange semi-mortal spirit and continues his stride to embrace the Inquisitor in a powerful hug. For a moment, when they touch, it feels to Dorian like they share one frenzied heartbeat and that threatens to choke them, but the feeling clears as they part. The mage makes a note not to do that again in here, however.

“Is everyone alright?” Cassandra enquires of the Inquisitor’s trio as they gather. Her words are met with mumbles of being unable to discern if anyone is or isn’t. Gathered and undeterred, (though, for the most part, not happy), they all walk a little until they find themselves on the crest of a flooded pond full of floating tombstones and upside-down mirrors. The water is black, reflecting the acid-red glow of the lyrium that towers out of derelicts and rock formations either side of the pond. There is no visible life here but the water crawls with something.

“Where from here?” Hawke asks, though knowing the answer.

“The only way we can go, I fear. Deeper into the Abyss.” The Inquisitor answers with a sallow expression, testing his foot on a floating mirror. It appears totally stable underfoot.

“Oh goodie. Nothing bad ever happened in the Abyss.” Dorian quips as he follows the rogue’s path over this treacherous looking water trap.


	5. Fading Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Lavellan must go through the Fade, called by fear. Will their love survive this twisted place?

Their feet collectively squelch and sink around them as they navigate the self-flooding pools. On some level, Dorian regrets diverting all that rain into the Fade now.

“It’s abyssal in here. Crawling with darkspawn at every turn...” Stroud posits, to which Dorian corrects:

“The word you’re after is _abysmal_ , Warden Stroud.” His wet feet are souring his mood even further but keeping Lavellan in his sights is good enough to focus on for now. They’ve waded for what feels like an hour, Cole never straying far from Dorian but never close enough to touch either. He can feel a coolness move around him as Cole wanders nearby. Cassandra is primed and ready to tear into anything that so much as moves, and Dorian, for once, sees her point.

“These monsters—I thought I had put an end to this.” Hawke wonders as they walk, struck with disbelief as they duck around a sunken corner and discover the wreck of a dreamer before them. Laid low, on a bed, bones are trapped in an amber light, a voice torn to shred in amongst it. When they get closer Dorian and Cole can make it out. It’s too distorted for those unaccustomed to Fade magic to discern.

“This place has taken me --- leave me--- leave this---- this place has taken-----he wants all that he can see----touch----he wants...” The voice hisses and Cole trembles as he interprets it for the group.

“It’s lost it’s love. In the possessive, not simply heart-missing. Like missing an arm...” Dorian speaks as he notices that the skeleton on the bed is missing an arm. He suggests and Cole agrees that finding it would release the dreamer’s spirit from the torment it is trapped in. The Inquisitor looks across at the mage, whose skin is coloured green in parts by the unnatural light down here, and nods in agreement. Cass and Stroud set off in to the South, Dorian and Lavellan to the East, and Cole leads Hawke to the West, all knowing the North to be behind them. Clusters of searching eyes seek bones that belong to the body on the bed, but a tension befalls every pair’s search on fear of attack, especially in their smaller numbers.

“Trial of the Lovers, don’t you think?” Dorian says aloud, to break the uneasy feeling between him and the Inquisitor.

“Yes, perhaps. I don’t know--” The rogue trails off, looking without seeing as he quite obviously battles with whether he should hold Dorian’s hand or not. He keeps flinching his fingers towards Dorian and then consciously bundling them into a fist every time he draws closer.

“On the other side, amatus.” Dorian utters, noticing Lavellan’s unquiet struggle. He turns to the rogue and touches the tips of his index and forefinger to Lavellan’s lips, before raising them to his forehead. “This first.” He says with a smile that does not colour his words in.

“I’m not a child.” The rogue whispers, hurt and comforted in the same gesture. Dorian’s smile falls and he tries to swallow it down, knowing it was a mistake to even offer kindness in this place of doubt.

“On the other side. Not here.” He tells their leader with clouding eyes, waiting for the ground to swallow him whole.

“I’ve found it!” Cassandra cuts off the words that don’t make it out of Lavellan’s mouth in apology.

“Inquisitor.” Stroud follows after, pointing with his sword at Cassandra, brandishing the arm. “We have an arm for you.”

“I have a ring, for it, I found one—“ Cole shouts across as he approaches the group with Hawke beside. The champion of Kirkwall is stoic as he watches the group clamour to repair any damage they can in here. He admires it without saying so, his fears press him not to. “placed on a dying branch—did you find anything, Inquisitor?” His thoughts fall from his mouth without consideration here. The Inquisitor remains speechless in a way but softens his fright with a soft shaking of his head. “Dorian?” Cole questions, prodding at the hurt he can feel radiating from the pair of them.

“No, Cole, nothing found here that we didn’t already see.” Dorian tries to urge Cole away from the issue with a generous gesture of his arm, offering to the party the view of bubbling swamps swallowing bookshelves where they just were. “Just piles of books, but at least you were both lucky.” He clarifies and dismisses the issue all at once, thinking too quickly to stop himself before he touches Lavellan’s wrist accidentally. He feels his stomach sink briefly and has to force himself to carry on with this sinking feeling inside him. “You’re hurt-“ Cole states as he sees Dorian flinch, though small.

“Not now, Cole.” The mage abruptly replies, trying not to offend the spirit. “We have a soul to save. No time to lose, we’ve taken in enough of the scenery I think.” He strides away with the group in tow close behind. Cassandra and Cole unite the hand and ring and set the joined item on the bed in line with the skeleton. Dorian and Hawke, together, take the initiative and try to dispel the dreamer’s curse once it’s laid down but nothing happens. The amber veil simply trembles. Lavellan watches rapt before realising something and cutting in.

“Wait— both of you.” He offers, and the mages turn to him. Dorian doesn’t quite meet his gaze. He raises his right hand and splays it by way of example and then moves the limb as he speaks. “Only a pair of lovers has two right hands.” Lavellan moves the arm with the ring over to hold the other’s hand and then steps back. “Carry on.”

Both mages nod cautiously and try the dispelling again, to the rippling success of the amber light over them all clearing and taking the bones with it. 

“We helped. This bed does not hurt so much anymore.” Cole utters, as though he has been communing with the furniture this whole time.

“Let’s carry on, shall we?” Stroud and Cassandra voice at the same time. Something about the party feels healed, after repairing the lovers. They’ve brought a quiet to this place at least. Ironically that notion is shattered by the low and booming echo of Corypheus, rattling at the stones on the ground.

“You think you can change this place, elf?” His all-consuming words ring against every surface. “And your band of the fallen—all around. It is not long before they join the bones that unrest here.” “A Tevinter, in your arms. A bastard son, at that. Then a Seeker who fears what she looks for. Weak at your cores. And one of my own, a demon boy.”

“Spirit!” Cole protests with fire in his voice.

“I’ll show him bastard-” Dorian growls, flexing his fingers around his staff.

“He thinks he knows all, we’ll show him he’s wrong.” Cassandra announces, swinging her sword in a sweeping arc and slamming it against her shield before letting out a rallying cry and running forth in a blossoming cloud of thick black and green smoke forming before them.

“Fallen heroes, all. How must it feel to watch madness steal your men away, Warden Stroud?” Corypheus continues as the warriors take arms. The Inquisitor turns his head to catch Dorian’s eye, a reassuring gesture, before tossing a trademark metal-shard cluster in the air, concealing him from sight. Dorian draws a half circle with his feet and twirls his staff around his body, ready for the oncoming assault.

The screams, the blood; it feels endless. They all fight tirelessly forward, waging an uncertain war with every step. For each other, for a future that exists outside of the shifting place, they push on. There is no peace nor rest until they finally crest a hill and look down into a blackened pool below, all panting as they still themselves for a moment. Dorian catches his breath and feels the Inquisitor’s unmistakable finger-light touch on his side as he does.

“We’re almost there.” Lavellan tells his gathered party.

“I won’t be sorry to leave this shithole behind.” Dorian mumbles, turning to face his rogue with a fleeting smile. He turns, a moment later, to call to Cole. “Are you alright, Cole? Still with us?”

“Here I am. No losing me now. He has no hands to touch me---these hands are mine—I am here with hands.”

“Incomprehensible as always, that’s a comfort.” Dorian smiles with a little more warmth.

“Hawke, Stroud; stay with us. I will not leave anyone behind.” The Inquisitor warns his allies. It is a promise that he will be forced to break, but he cannot know that when he makes it. He is not so cruel as to do so. “Seeker, are you ready?”

“I am willing and armed, that is enough for now.”

“Dorian?”

“Just say the word—I’ve been aching to rip apart from more grisly little spiders all day.” Dorian quips, straightening his back from the long lean he was in. He brushes his fingers across Lavellan’s waist in a brief show of support before stabbing his staff into the ground to extinguish its flame. “Let’s give them hell.” They jump down from the peak and into the sludge-like pool. They can walk a little in it, but it’s difficult to move fully. This is the hand they’ve been dealt, and so help them they will play it. Crawling up on Dorian’s right side come three, four, scuttling fearlings, which he focusses on with help from Hawke, both cursing the things as they wade around each other. A rage demon comes for Cassandra, an envy demon for Stroud. The Inquisitor and Cole make through the middle and head for Corypheus himself who proves to be a vision as they attack; the vision bursting into a fear demon as it does so. The troupe is swamped by spiders, hissing at them, thinking they were over the worst of it. Pressing towards the others, Dorian, Hawke, Cassandra and Stroud either pull their quarries with them or dispatch them as hastily as possible before falling back to find each other.

The fight is far from over but they battle through, moving out of each other’s way as best as they can in the commotion of legs and arms. Dorian immolates a spider as it rears up to pincer Cole, allowing Cole to race to the one behind it and pin it to the floor with his blades. The fear demon, through all of this, spills bile, berating their efforts with slander.

“What do you think this will do?” The demon rattles its tongue, summoning a beastly hundred-eyes spider encased in a crab’s shell behind it. “Such small victories for no gain. Corypheus will rise – he cannot be stopped.”

“At least you will not live to see it.” Lavellan seethes as he chain throws a dagger at the beast, flipping backward into the air as he does so. Dorian dispels the demon as he summons more creeping pests, giving them a moment to concentrate their fire on just the one demon. Blows come from all sides and the thing before them begins to wither. Thinking they have defeated the beast a little too soon, it lashes out with brutal accuracy and pierces Lavellan’s stomach and slices open Cassandra’s armour in the same action.

“Inquisitor!” Hawke yells, gathering the demon’s attention. He traps the thing is spray of vines and casts a separate enchantment to spring thorns from the vines to riddle the demon with wounds and trap him all at once. The demon laughs with a shrill cackle, swinging out a final time and catching the Inquisitor again, causing him to bring his hands to his head with a scream. The demon bursts into a swarm of tiny spiders which Hawke and Dorian destroy reactively, all looking at the suffering Inquisitor as he loses his balance. In a panic, Dorian casts a spirit-capturing spell on the Inquisitor as he falls back, trying to catch him as he does.

Gathering the rogue in his arms, Dorian feels his heart slow dramatically and his breathing stills. His eyes close as he looks up at the fraught faces of his allies.

“Take them – get out of here.” Stroud shouts, gesturing to the ghastly spider-crab closing in on them.

“You can’t possibly-” Cassandra starts, as she realises his plan.

“I know. I just need to buy you time.” He looks solemnly to Hawke, leaving this as a final promise to protect Thedas, whatever the cost.

“It’s been an honour, Warden Stroud.” Hawke declares, bathing the man in a barrier spell as Cole nods softly at the Grey Warden. He understands the hurt that brought this sacrifice about but feels himself pulled to the far greater hurt burning in Dorian’s chest. As they scramble away from Stroud and the beast, in a final fight, Dorian clutches Lavellan close, convinced that he has killed him. He’s lost him, Dorian is certain, and that is choking the air from his body as he runs to the veil tear. ‘Not here... anywhere but here.’

As the run, Dorian can’t think to look back to Stroud to bid him a quick death, he simply runs directionless almost, following the others as they tumble out of this hellish realm and back into the blistering light and sun of the Western Approach. As he falls through the Fade, Dorian tries to turn his back to the tear to fall out backwards to the Inquisitor lands on him and not the other way around. He just manages it, landing on his back as the Inquisitor’s dead weight hits him. Cole, quick as light, fell not far behind Dorian, enough to slow the pair down as they skidded across the sandy stone.

Around him, he hears murmurs, whispers, conjecture; none clear enough to discern. The fall has winded the mage, as he feels his head pounding, he tries to lean up and cradle the Inquisitor’s head in his hands. He whispers hurried thoughts as he uses his hands to dispel the leader of the Inquisition, praying that his reanimation spell has not stuck. He can feel his heart still, though it’s soft and fluttering. ‘Come on, you bastard’ He thinks, urging him with words then.

“Come on! Not yet---” Dorian tries to revive the rogue with a healing spell then, speaking under his breath the whole time. As he does, Cole leans down over the pair and reassures Dorian that he can still hear the Inquisitor’s hurt in this place; he’s still with us. Dorian cannot comprehend Cole’s words at the time but will be grateful for them later as he tries again to magically recall the Inquisitor to consciousness. He sees no success so offers the elf’s body back to the ground beneath them and presses a hand to his heart to feel it. He pushes hard in the hopes of starting it again, before craning himself over and pinching the rogue’s nose with his other hand. Using this angle, he tilts the Inquisitor’s mouth open and presses a kiss of life to his lips, expelling air into his lungs as he presses he hand over his heart hard. He lets both go momentarily to dispel the body once again, before going back to try again; desperately trying anything he knows or has heard of to this and revive his rogue. As he draws back a second time, Dorian feels air push back at him, he sees the Inquisitor’s chest rise. His eyelids blink tenderly, a sign which Dorian leaps up, taking the man’s face in both of his hands.

“Even here...” Lavellan whispers in a gasp. “Clementines.” Dorian laughs in a breathless gesture, unable to say a thing, treasuring the sight of the rogue now blinking in his grasp. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’ He thinks with a dying fury.

“Watch your eyes, it’s bright.” The mage whispers, resting his fingers over Lavellan’s eyes. “We’re out now.” That is all he can say, unable to take his eyes off the man who has his heart. He hears Cassandra speculate that the Inquisitor is alright, alive, we are back.

Behind them, somewhere Dorian can’t see, a voice asks the whereabouts of Stroud. She and Hawke tell the speaker the news of Stroud’s noble sacrifice. The Inquisitor lives – that is the victory of the day.

\--

It’s at least a week after leaving the Fade behind that Dorian and the Inquisitor get to touching again, never mind talking. In that time, though, Dorian has hardly left the Inquisitor’s side. The rogue recovered over the following days and Dorian took to tending him where he could. Around his bed, at Skyhold, Dorian had begun to fill vials, vases and bowls with flowers; anything that would hold water was bearing life.

As peace began to fill their days, in lieu of war, Dorian found it strange to be in Lavellan’s quarters. It felt like he was trespassing, it had an entirely removed intimacy about it. To him, they were his bed and his room. It was new ground for he, a lowly Tevinter mage, to be in the Inquisitor’s quarters with him: alone.

As he raises a gentle hand in offering to Lavellan’s cheek, Dorian mentions this thought to him.

“You can appear in my bed, but not I in yours. Don’t you think?”

“I want you in my bed, Dorian.” The Inquisitor tells him, assuredly risqué.

“I perish the thought, lest is perishes me.” Dorian whispers to the rogue. He places both of his hands around the Inquisitor’s waist, pushing his doublet into his skin to give his body the memory of his touch.

“I mean it!” Lavellan reiterates as Dorian gets up from the bed, making moves to leave.

“I believe you; but it’s politics, isn’t it, darling?” Dorian replies with a flick of his fingers, summoning a handful of runes to his hand. “As Vivienne would say. Perish that thought too.” He shakes his head disgustedly for a small moment before returning his attentions to the leader of the Inquisition. “Never thought I’d bring Vivienne to bed, in any sense...” He mumbles to himself before collecting his thoughts with a smile. “Maker forbid ‘that necro Vint’ be seen clasped in your embrace, that would seem like favouritism.” The Inquisitor sits up in bed, watching as Dorian now lingers in the doorway of the his lofty quarters.

“You and I have walked through the Fade for politics! So that they may continue to spar over drapery colours and teryns who own one more sheep than another. Without the Inquisition, they wouldn’t be alive to have the privilege of complaining – the least they can do is let me have my way in my own bed.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But they don’t see it like that. They see scandal and cause for doubt, and so, they go about setting fires while all around them already burns; just to see whose fire is bigger.” Dorian matter-of-factly explains, enjoying this slight piercing of the veil of Thedas’ intricate political workings. “Welcome to high society, amatus.” He charms the rogue with a smile, in the full knowledge that they are of the same mind about this. The Inquisitor takes in his words for a moment, watching him idle there.

“Dorian!” Lavellan stops him as he disappears from sight. “It _is_ favouritism.” The mage chuckles with a knowing smile as he leaves the leader of the Inquisition behind him. “Be back before nightfall, I would not be cold in my own bed.” The Inquisitor shouts after him, hoping the whole castle hears him.


End file.
